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Thursday, August 25, 2016

Back Off! That's My Jock by Wade Kelly

Defining his sexuality didn’t make sense until his best
friend spelled it out.

Doug Archer did some pretty idiotic things in the first eight weeks of his
junior year of college. First, he kissed his gay best friend, and second, he
kissed a guy he’d mistaken for a girl. Not stellar moments for Doug. If he
isn’t careful, he’ll lose his spot on the soccer team to the new freshman, or
worse, he might misconstrue his new friend Rob’s overly affectionate tendencies
for flirting. But if Doug isn’t bothered by another guy’s attention, and he
normally dates girls, does that mean he’s gay or bisexual?

Sam Garber suppressed his same-sex attraction his entire life. His father told
him it was immoral, and Sam did everything he could to bury his feelings.
However, after meeting Doug at a party and kissing him, Sam can’t think of
anything else. He decides dating girls is the best way to keep his secret
hidden. With playoffs in sight, this is no time to think about guys in any
other context than soccer. Only neither boy anticipates the difficulty in
suppressing his attraction for another jock!

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
Previously I've read Names Can Never Hurt
Me by Wade Kelly. However, I am new to the Jocks series, and was reading it
as a standalone.

I will be honest, since I hadn't read the two previous books, I was slightly
lost at the start. If you pick this book up at random, (like I did for review)
the beginning may have you close to throwing in the towel.

The total of my thoughts were, "Wow, that's a lot of telling
instead of showing!" "I want to read it in real-time, not be given a
play-by-play."

(Obviously – hopefully – these scenes were abbreviated because they were in
previous books, but I didn't know that, as I didn't know this was the 3rd in a
series when I signed up to review. My bad – I'm so used to standalone series,
where the new narrator connects in the series but it's 'new'.)

I'm a serious reader, who doesn't like over-the-top zany slapstick, so when
Doug met Rob in the grocery store, I was so close to DNFing. Close enough that
I warned our Wicked Reads' mistress that I may have to bow out of this read and
review to save my Kindle from bodily harm. Rob rubbed me wrong (I'm positive if
I knew Rob from the previous books, I would have continued without issue, not
finding Rob annoying). I was so worried Rob was Doug's love interest, with the
zany nicknames and odd behavior (becoming the assistant coach scene). But Doug
was the narrator, and I was enjoying his more serious voice, so I continued.

By the time Rob asked Doug, "Do you want to play Uno?" I was on
board. I'd fallen in love with Rob, and so happy I continued to read instead of
not finishing due to issues. Bear in mind, I figured I was missing many things
that would have connected me to past narrators, as I didn't read those books.
The overall entertainment, enjoyment, and glee would have been ten times higher
if I'd read the books in order. So I do plan on reading book one and two in my
free-time, and I hope we get Rob's story soon.

Doug and Sam are the love interests, with an interesting backstory, which I
wished I would have gotten to read in real-time. (But maybe I do in a previous
book?!? Same with Chris and the kiss, I assume). Doug has 90% of the narration
time, with Sam having a few scenes, as well as Chris having a voice. It wasn't
quite balanced for my tastes – the switching of the narration, but it was nice
to hear their sides, as well as see other characters not directly connected to
Doug.

Instead of diving into the storyline, which is too spoilery for me, I'll just
let you know how I felt as I read the book. Call me a hormonal/over-emotional
girl, if you will, but I got teary-eyed through the book for no reason
whatsoever. Whether it was sad, sweet, tortured, celebratory, funny, or
conflicted, whatever was going on on-scene had me tearing up.

9 times out of 10, the guy who almost had me DNFing the book was the one who
made me smile or cry. Rob.

I need more Rob.

Back Off! That's My Jock. Okay, so
the title makes it appear as if it's a cheesy, erotic novella. But in truth,
there was a ton of story packed in the pages, with a wealth of depth.

My only negative, which had me rating 4 stars was the length. The book just
felt too long. Even though I was entertained, I found myself looking at the %
read. Often. From 60% - 90%, nothing of note actually happened, and what did,
could have been added to the first 60% or the last 10%. I lost interest, found
myself skimming, and was generally bored as scenes were pretty much redundant
to the previous ones. Filler. I don't want to sound mean, but this portion
didn't drive the story or character development forward, and may cause a few
readers to skim as I did.

I definitely recommend this book to fans of MM Romance and Sports Romance. I
look forward to going back and reading books one and two in the series and
checking out Wade Kelly's previous works.

Wade Kelly lives and writes in conservative, small-town America on the east
coast where it’s not easy to live free and open in one's beliefs. Wade writes
passionately about controversial issues and strives to make a difference by
making people think. Wade does not have a background in writing or philosophy,
but still draws from personal experience to ponder contentious subjects on
paper. There is a lot of pain in the world and people need hope. When not
writing, she is thinking about writing, and more than likely scribbling ideas
on sticky notes in the car while playing “taxi driver” for her three children.
She likes snakes, can’t spell, and has a tendency to make people cry.

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